Saturday, October 6, 2012

A wonderful thing happened in Georgia on October 1, 2012. The Department of Community Health affirmed the denial of the waiver request of Atlanta Women's Medical Center located at 235 W. Wieuca Road, Atlanta, Georgia. This facility performs abortions up to twenty four weeks and regulations required that facilities such as these that are located on the second floor must have an elevator. This center does not, hence the request for the elevator waiver. After obtaining the waiver it became apparent they were not taking care to meet its requirements because when investigated it was determined they routinely failed to escort patients down the stairs after surgery and on at least one occasion failed to inform the 911 operator there was no elevator which delayed the EMTs in getting an injured patient out of the building. So it is wonderful news that the waiver was denied – the health of women was routinely being put at risk each and every time they failed to meet the waiver's provisions. Thank you Governor Deal and Commissioner Cook for putting Georgia's women first!

As excited as I am about the affirmation, I cannot and could not answer the questions that have been coming in about AWMC's status. Is AWMC still doing abortions or were they shut down? As of this writing they are still doing late term abortions, putting the health of Georgia women at risk and I can find no information online about what happens in these instances. Does the state issue a cease and desist order telling them to shut it down? Is there some kind of grace period they have to bring themselves into compliance with the ambulatory surgical center regulations? Can they just say they are no longer performing second trimester abortions and remain open doing only first trimester? These are questions I have no answers to. I have several calls into the Department of Community Health and I will ask these questions if anyone returns even one of those calls. Stay tuned. If I get answers I will pass them on to you . . .

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

A little more than a month and a half ago, I began writing about Georgia women being in danger because an abortion center, Atlanta Women's Medical Center chose to ignore the requirements for two story ambulatory surgical centers. They refused to install an elevator claiming an undue hardship (despite bringing in more than three million dollars of revenue each and every year), and safety of their staff over the safety of the women on whom they had just performed surgery. Today I ask you to join me in thanking Governor Deal (404-656-1776), and Commissioner Cook (404-656-4507) for taking action to deny the ongoing waiver to this facility that had put thousands of Georgia women at risk each year.

The Department of Community Health, on August 30, 2012, declined to renew the waiver because the center "failed to supply facts, financial, architectural, or otherwise, showing why it would not currently be feasible to construct an elevator, relocate to the first floor or otherwise come into compliance with the requirements of Rule 290-5-33-10 (f) without causing undue hardship. They were also cited for failing to assess the patients and provide an escort down the stairs after the surgery as well as failing to document that patients were escorted down the stairs as required in the waiver.

The Department of Community Health allowed for and accepted a request for an administrative review of the August 30th decision. On October 1, 2012, DCH affirmed the decision to deny a waiver.

All across America states are finding that abortionists have failed to exercise reasonable standards of medical care to the patients that seek their services. Many facilities when inspected have been found to be squalid, and some are known to pass diseases and infections to the patients. It is more than heartening to see that our state is unwilling to allow abortion providers to flagrantly violate state laws and provisions for ambulatory surgical centers. Join me in applauding the willingness of leaders in our state to take steps to ensure patient safety in a procedure that routinely injures women and terminates the lives of children. Please call the Governor and Commissioner Cook. Let them know we appreciate their leadership on this issue.

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